Lando Norris Wary of Alpine Denying McLaren Q3 in Portuguese GP Qualifying

It hasn’t been a pleasing start to the Portuguese Grand Prix for McLaren driver, Lando Norris, who was part of the podium celebrations in Imola last weekend.

McLaren have so far looked all over the place on the tricky Algarve circuit, with the gusty winds and low grip track surface making their lives even harder. It was undeniably a tough Friday afternoon in Portimao for the British outfit.

Following the two practice sessions, Norris opened up that the car isn’t pacy enough to break into the top 10 on Saturday’s qualifying.

What’s more, with Alpine looking much stronger compared to the last couple of weekends, McLaren might have a huge task at hand overnight of somehow finding the few tenths that could help them fight for a place in the top 10 on Saturday.

“Normally we had a big gap to the Alpine the last few weekends. But this weekend, they seem a lot more competitive. So it makes the race, or the chance to get into Q3, a lot more difficult,” Norris said.

Have a bit of work to do: McLaren driver

As reported by Motorsport, Norris opened up about the balance of the car that hasn’t looked stable since the start of the weekend.

“The car balance also isn’t maybe quite as good as the past few weekends. So we definitely have a bit of work to do to be confident of being in the top 10. And we’re not confident of being inside the top 10, which is important to get into Q3,” he said.

“So it’s a bit tougher than we expected. And a bit tougher than we want. But, yeah, we have overnight to try and make some improvements for qualifying.”

Norris managed P8 and P12 in the two practice sessions, and they certainly aren’t the kind of track positions the Briton would be looking forward to.

But the good news is that despite being far from the leader in terms of track position, his lap times suggested that he was just 0.9 seconds off the top runners.

Hence, will McLaren manage to find those crucial few tenths and give Norris another shot at competing for a front start to the race in Portimao? Only time will tell.

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